In general, a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, which uses hydrogen as a fuel, uses electric charges generated by reacting hydrogen and oxygen and generates propulsion force by driving a drive motor in the vehicle. In evaluating performance of the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, a cold starting temperature and a starting time are important factors.
In a general fuel cell, hydrogen and oxygen actively react to each other at a specific temperature, and operations for increasing a temperature of a fuel cell system in a vehicle are performed at a relatively low temperature (for example, approximately 2° C. below zero).
As an example, a method for increasing a temperature of a fuel cell system in a related art includes a method that increases an internal temperature of the fuel cell by mounting a heater in the system.
As another example, a method, which increases an internal temperature of a fuel cell stack using a heater in a related art, increases a temperature of air and supplies the temperature-increased air to the fuel cell stack by using a heater to help increasing a surface temperature of a stack cathode side, but since a temperature at a stack anode side needs to be implemented by heat transfer by conduction, it is insufficient to increase a stack temperature to a target level. Further, when the heater heats the hydrogen supplied to the anode side of the fuel cell stack, it is impossible to directly heat the hydrogen due to explosion.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention, and therefore, it may include information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.